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AI News January 9, 2026: Constitutional Classifiers++, OpenAI for Healthcare, Scribe v2

AI News January 9, 2026: Constitutional Classifiers++, OpenAI for Healthcare, Scribe v2

This Week in AI

Busy day for major announcements: Anthropic publishes a research paper on LLM safety after 1700 hours of intensive red-teaming. OpenAI launches an enterprise offering dedicated to hospitals with HIPAA support. ElevenLabs unveils Scribe v2, its new speech-to-text transcription model.


Constitutional Classifiers++: Anthropic Strengthens Safety

January 9, 2026 — Anthropic publishes a major new research paper on the robustness of its defenses against jailbreaks.

🔗 Paper on arXiv | X Thread

Context

Last year, Anthropic introduced Constitutional Classifiers, a system that trains classifiers based on a “constitution” specifying which queries Claude should or should not answer. This system reduced jailbreak success rates from 86% to 4.4%, but presented two problems: computationally expensive and prone to refusing legitimate queries.

Three Key Innovations

The new Constitutional Classifiers++ system brings three major improvements:

InnovationDescription
Exchange ClassifiersEvaluate responses in their full conversational context, correcting the vulnerability of previous systems that examined outputs in isolation
Two-Stage CascadeLightweight classifiers filter all traffic, escalating only suspicious exchanges to more powerful classifiers
Linear ProbesPractical application of interpretability: probes observe Claude’s internal activations (“gut instincts”) to detect suspicious queries

Results

MetricPerformance
Cost Reduction40x compared to baseline
Compute overheadOnly ~1%
Production Refusal Rate0.05%
False Refusal Drop87%
Red-teaming1700h without universal jailbreak

After 1,700 cumulative hours of red-teaming, we’ve yet to identify a universal jailbreak (a consistent attack strategy that works across many queries) that works on our new system.

@AnthropicAI

Why It Matters

The system uses Claude’s internal activations as a “gut instinct” that is difficult to trick. When the probe detects a suspicious query, it sends it to a more powerful “exchange” classifier that analyzes both sides of the conversation. This cascade architecture allows for robust protection without the prohibitive computational cost of previous generations.


OpenAI for Healthcare: AI Enters Hospitals

January 8, 2026 — OpenAI launches an enterprise offering dedicated to the healthcare sector, distinct from ChatGPT Health announced the day before.

🔗 Official Announcement

Difference from ChatGPT Health

ProductTargetFocus
ChatGPT HealthGeneral PublicPersonal wellness, health app connection
OpenAI for HealthcareEnterprisesHospitals, clinics, clinical workflows

ChatGPT for Healthcare

An enterprise version of ChatGPT designed for healthcare organizations:

  • Healthcare-Optimized Models: GPT-5.2 with evaluations by 260+ physicians in 60 countries on HealthBench
  • Transparent Medical Citations: Responses sourced from peer-reviewed studies, clinical guidelines, with titles, journals, and dates
  • Institutional Alignment: SharePoint integration to respect facility protocols and pathways
  • Reusable Templates: Discharge summaries, patient instructions, clinical letters, prior authorization support

Launch Partners

InstitutionSpecialty
Boston Children’s HospitalPediatrics
Stanford Medicine Children’s HealthPediatrics
Memorial Sloan KetteringOncology
Cedars-Sinai Medical CenterGeneral Hospital
HCA HealthcareHospital Network
UCSFAcademic Medical Center
AdventHealthHospital Network
Baylor Scott & White HealthHospital Network

HIPAA Compliance

AspectSupport
BAABusiness Associate Agreement with OpenAI
Data residencyData residency options
Audit logsComprehensive audit logs
EncryptionCustomer-managed encryption keys
TrainingData not used to train models

Healthcare is among the fastest-growing enterprise markets adopting AI, and hospitals and academic medical centers are already rolling out ChatGPT for Healthcare across their teams.

OpenAI


ElevenLabs Scribe v2: Next-Gen Transcription

January 9, 2026 — ElevenLabs announces the availability of the Scribe v2 API for developers and enterprises.

🔗 Scribe v2 Documentation | X Thread

Main Capabilities

FeatureDetails
Languages90+ supported languages
Keyterm promptingUp to 100 terms to bias the model towards specific words
Entity detection56 entity types (names, card numbers, medical conditions, SSN)
Speaker diarizationUp to 48 distinct speakers
TimestampsWord-level precision
Audio taggingAutomatic detection of audio events (laughter, applause)

Realtime Version

Scribe v2 also exists in a real-time version:

MetricPerformance
Latency~150ms
Languages90+
TranscriptionReal-time via WebSockets

Enterprise Compliance

ElevenLabs offers a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for clients requiring HIPAA compliance, making Scribe v2 usable in medical contexts.

With Scribe v2, developers and enterprises can automate complex audio pipelines, achieve higher accuracy in global content workflows, and scale with full compliance and data residency controls.

@elevenlabsio


What This Means

Anthropic continues to lead on LLM safety. The combination of interpretability + classifier cascade is elegant: using Claude’s “gut instincts” to detect attacks is harder to bypass than explicit rules. The 87% reduction in false refusals is crucial for enterprise adoption.

OpenAI is attacking the B2B healthcare market head-on, one of the most regulated sectors. The complete offering with HIPAA, BAA, and prestigious hospital partnerships positions OpenAI for Healthcare as a serious alternative to legacy solutions. The differentiation from ChatGPT Health (B2C) shows a mature product strategy.

ElevenLabs completes its audio stack with a state-of-the-art STT. The combination of TTS (voice) + STT (transcription) + HIPAA compliance makes it a full-stack solution for enterprise voice applications. Keyterm prompting is particularly useful for technical terms or proper names.


Sources